Jane Hovey of Boston passed away Sunday at the age of 94, after a somewhat brief but very challenging illness. She took on these last few weeks with the calm wisdom and common sense everyone always admired in her.

Jane hailed from Amesbury, Massachusetts, the second of three daughters to James Corliss and Grace Meehan Corliss.

Despite two years of debilitating illness, she graduated first in the Amesbury High School class of 1950. She was valedictorian once again at Massachusetts General Hospital’s School of Nursing, while also receiving the highest score ever on the State of Massachusetts’s licensing exam. She would go on to be greatly admired by the doctors, nurses, and medical staff with whom she worked in hospitals across the country. She spent the last few decades of her career as a psychiatric nurse at the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

While in nursing school, Jane met fellow nursing student Thomas Cox Hovey, and the two were married soon after. They had three children together: Kathryn Anne Rangel of Clayton, North Carolina; Thomas Cox Hovey Jr., who sadly passed away in 2013; and Theodore William Hovey of Los Angeles.

Jane’s sharp mind and curiosity kept her young, even when her legs began to let her down. She read constantly. She read the Boston Globe from cover to cover every day; she read books on history, especially those that would sate her unending interest in the two World Wars; and she read quality fiction by authors like Penelope Lively, William Trevor, and Anne Tyler.

Anyone who knew Jane was well aware of her great enthusiasm for sports, especially basketball, tennis, and baseball. She loved the game of baseball so much that she, a lifelong Red Sox fan, admitted to the cardinal sin of also liking the New York Yankees, because they exemplified — albeit arguably to excess — good baseball.

Many might not be aware of just how important music was to her, everything from Willie Nelson to the heaviest of classical music. She even made trips to New York specifically to attend the Metropolitan Opera, especially when Jessye Norman was performing.

Of all the qualities that made Jane dear to those around her — intelligence, wit, humor, optimism — the traits that colored all the others were her kindness and generosity, both to those she knew and to those she would never know. Even before retiring, she began to volunteer at the Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House, dispensing food, clothing, and encouragement to some of Boston’s unhoused.

She donated regularly to charities that fed the hungry locally, nationally, and internationally. She gave to children’s charities, like Covenant House, the Home for Little Wanderers, and several schools for Native American children. And as an unwavering animal lover, she also contributed to organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and Defenders of Wildlife.

Jane was predeceased by both her sisters, Mary Elizabeth Woods and Kathryn Ann Roth.

Aside from her children, Jane is survived by her daughter Kati’s three children: Corina Rangel of Somerville, Massachusetts; David Rangel of Clayton, North Carolina; and Alex Rangel, of Vista, California. In 2023, Corina and her partner, Thomas Higdon, gave Jane her first great-grandchild, Callan Jack Higdon, in whom she delighted.

Jane’s loss will also be felt deeply by her sister Kathryn’s four children; Jeff, Betsy, Greg, and Suzy; and by Greg’s three daughters, Polly, Maddie, and Carly.

In lieu of flowers or other acts of kindness, please consider making a contribution to one of the causes Jane supported. No formal services are to be anticipated.